When you talk about Texans vying for playing time you don't automatically say "hey, how about that battle for long snapper?" But those are the things that Special Teams Coordinator Joe Marciano thinks about all the time.

James Casey is trying to win a job there to go along with a job at TE and perhaps some part time work as fullback as well. It's Marciano's task to see if he can cut it in short order. Casey is a throwback who can do a lot of things. Marciano compares he and Connor Barwin to Jim Thorpe (in versatility not degree of difficulty, of course).

In well over two decades Marciano has seen NFL players and coaches come and go but he insists the game of football basically stays the same. "The game hasn’t changed. The players are the same players. When I got in this league in ’86, we got the same players in there, they just have different names, different faces.

"We’ve got some great guys and we’ve got some guys we’ve always got to keep our thumb on all the time. But the game hasn’t changed. I still show tape of Bennie Thompson, Steve Tasker, the tackling of Rod Woodson and Deion Sanders. I still got all those tapes. What I coached then, I coach now. The principles of football don’t change.”

Marciano says being a father has made a difference in his coaching style. "I’ve learned from raising a boy, my son, that you’ve got to have patience, especially with a special needs son like I’ve got. He’s come along fine so that has helped me transform into having some patience with these guys."

Plus, the attitude of gratitude is something Marciano likes to push. "I tell those guys, ‘I’m not going to yell at you. If you do this you’re going to be out of work. I’ve got to work, you’re looking to get work. Where else can you go and come to work in underwear, where else, and go make $325,000? Try doing it my way.’ That’s all I say. Plus, being around Tony Dungy has helped. He’s not a yeller and those guys will run through a wall for him."

It's easy to understand why Joe Marciano has been so good for so long.